Sen. Merkley Suggests Putin May Have ‘Something close to’ a Pee Tape

One of the more salacious and wild claims made in the Christopher Steele Dossier, regarding Trump’s ties to Russia, were the allegations that Trump directed prostitutes to urinate on a bed that President Obama had slept in, at the Moscow Ritz Carlton. The passage from the dossier reads:

“There were other aspects to Trump’s engagement with the Russian authorities. One which had borne fruit for them was to exploit Trump’s personal obsessions and sexual perversion in order to obtain suitable ‘kompromat’ (compromising material) on him. According to Source D, where s/he had been present, Trump’s (perverted) conduct in Moscow included hiring the presidential suite of the Ritz Carlton Hotel, where he knew President and Mrs. Obama (whom he hated) had stayed on one of their official trips to Russia, and defiling the bed where they had slept by employing a number of prostitutes to perform a ‘golden showers’ (urination) show in front of him. The hotel was known to be under FSB control with microphones and concealed cameras in all the main rooms to record anything they wanted to.”

Since the dossier was first published by Buzzfeed in January 2017, rumors of a ‘pee tape’ have been circulation among political pundits, conspiracy theorists and DC politicians alike. While no evidence of such tape or such acts performed by Trump have emerged publicly, a comment made this week by Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley, shows that the allegations in the dossier are still believed by many.

During an interview on BuzzFeed’s ‘AM to DM,’ Ben Smith asks Senator Merkley if he thinks Putin has anything on Trump. Merkley replies:

“I think it’s likely. It’s the standard strategy of Russia when people visit there who are important, to try to get compromising information on them, to set them up with hookers, to tape everything that goes on in their room. So it’s likely that they have that.”

Smith then followed up, asking, “Your view is that the pee tape is real?”

It’s worth noting, that while no evidence of the “pee tape” has emerged yet, many aspects of the Steele Dossier have been corroborated, and unlike what many politicians on the right say, the dossier has not been debunked.